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Comment by derrickdirge | Hacker News Reader

My point is that we should be cautious about assuming that his motives were uncomplicated.

For what it's worth, the FBI also found no evidence linking him to ISIL.

We can't possibly know what he felt in his heart, but making policy decisions based on the assumption that we can is reckless and only serves to further smooth over any of hint of subtlety left in American public discourse.

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So there's no evidence connecting him to Isil (which there generally isn't: Isil spread messages to sympathetic people telling them to do things - ask employees of one well known company who have an unlisted London office because someone wants to slit their throats). Recapping:

- The FBI has investigated and found no links that he was a patron of the club.

- He has, for a fact, murdered people in the name of Islam.

We can't know what he felt in his heart, but also we don't have any reason to believe his stated motives aren't his actual ones. It an uncomfortable fact, but a large percentage of Muslims say they believe in Sharia which holds some pretty awful beliefs about gay people (and women, and others).

All I'm saying is that it's impossible to know the extent to which those beliefs contributed to his actions. There are millions of people of all religions, including Islam, who aren't too keen on gay people. But the vast majority have never killed anyone.

Incidentally, his actual 'stated motives' were "[his] people... getting killed" in air strikes in general, and the death of Abu Waheeb in particular.

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